In 1744 Lady Hervey wrote in her “Letters,” that light-bodied chariots were then advertised as fit for town or country. As a further illustration of this period, there is a chariot in the South Kensington Museum belonging to the Earl of Darnley’s family, which is supposed to have been built in 1750. I should think it is of rather earlier date, probably 1700. The body is small, and abounds in curves and sweeps like furniture of the date of Louis XIV. The glasses of the doors and of the front rise and fall in frames. There is a broad perch, with two iron handsomely-forged cranes (exactly like those in the _diligence Anglaise_, which, unfortunately, did not please M. Roubo). The body is slung upon leather buckle braces, with small elbow springs at the bottom of the body at the hinder part. There is a small hammer-cloth on which the coachman could sit (the origin of the name is supposed to be from its original use in covering the budget which held the hammer and other tools that were frequently carried with carriages, especially travelling carriages, as late as the year 1840); the footboard is framed to the carriage part. There is a splinter-bar, by which the horses would be attached, and the wheel-irons hook on to this bar, and are attached at the hinder part to the ends of the front axletree. The front wheels are 2 ft. 9 in. high, and the number of spokes eight. The hind wheels have twelve spokes, and are 5 ft. high. The whole is hung low. We can well suppose that this was not a heavy carriage after the horses. When the first coach quarters were covered with leather, they were nailed on and the heads showed. After 1660 these nail heads were covered with a strip of metal made to imitate a row of beads; from this practice arose the name of “beading,” which has been retained, although beading is now made in a continuous level piece, either rounded or angular. The use of coaches had by this time spread from Europe to the colonies, and in 1740 there were many coaches and chariots in use at Spanish Town, Jamaica, and other large towns in America, wherever colonised by Europeans. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. STATE COACHES. A Coach of Silver--Lord Castlemaine’s Coach--Spanish Ambassador’s Coach--Ancient Spanish Coach--Austrian State Coach--State Funeral Coach at Vienna--State Coach of England--City State Coach.